The Taman Shud Case, also known as the Mystery of the Somerton Man, is an unsolved Murder by Poisoning case of an unidentified man found dead at 6:30 a.m., 1 December 1948, on Somerton beach in Adelaide, South Australia. This case is named after a phrase, tamam shud, meaning "finished" in Persian, on a scrap of the final page of The Rubaiyat, found in the hidden pocket of the man's trousers.
The man was never identified. Police found a suitcase which they believed was his containing clothing in which all but three items had their name tags removed. The name on the remaining items pointed them to a man who was later identified as not being the dead man. A small note in the man’s pocket said “taman shud” which is the last line of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. It had been cut from a book.
Why this is "Mind Boggling"??
Although investigators got a lot of clues, but still it remains unsolved, here is the list clues that were present near the crime scene,
1) The Scrap of Paper- The scrap of paper, with its distinctive font, found hidden in the dead man's trousers, torn from the last page of a rare New Zealand edition of The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam.
2) The Secret Code: The handwriting showing pencil markings in the back of a book of the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám. The markings are presumed to be some sort of code.
MRGOABABD
MTBIMPANETP
MLIABOAIAQC
ITTMTSAMSTGAB
This code has still remain unsolved. Try solving it, you never know.
3) A Telephone number : Found in the back of the book was an unlisted telephone number belonging to a former nurse who lived in Moseley St, Glenelg, around 400 metres (1,300 ft) north of the location where the body was found. The woman said that while she was working at Royal North Shore Hospital in Sydney during World War II she owned a copy of The Rubaiyat but in 1945, at the Clifton Gardens Hotel in Sydney, had given it to an army lieutenant named Alfred Boxall who was serving in the Water Transport Section of the Australian Army. Upon seeing a plaster cast of the dead man she identified him as Boxall. This appeared to solve the mystery of who the man was, until Boxall was discovered alive with his copy of the book undamaged. Coincidentally the woman who identified the man lived in Glenelg – the last town visited by the dead man before he travelled by bus to his final destination.
Below is the Tomb Stone of that man,
Source: Taman Shud Case
The man was never identified. Police found a suitcase which they believed was his containing clothing in which all but three items had their name tags removed. The name on the remaining items pointed them to a man who was later identified as not being the dead man. A small note in the man’s pocket said “taman shud” which is the last line of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. It had been cut from a book.
Why this is "Mind Boggling"??
Although investigators got a lot of clues, but still it remains unsolved, here is the list clues that were present near the crime scene,
1) The Scrap of Paper- The scrap of paper, with its distinctive font, found hidden in the dead man's trousers, torn from the last page of a rare New Zealand edition of The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam.
MRGOABABD
MTBIMPANETP
MLIABOAIAQC
ITTMTSAMSTGAB
This code has still remain unsolved. Try solving it, you never know.
3) A Telephone number : Found in the back of the book was an unlisted telephone number belonging to a former nurse who lived in Moseley St, Glenelg, around 400 metres (1,300 ft) north of the location where the body was found. The woman said that while she was working at Royal North Shore Hospital in Sydney during World War II she owned a copy of The Rubaiyat but in 1945, at the Clifton Gardens Hotel in Sydney, had given it to an army lieutenant named Alfred Boxall who was serving in the Water Transport Section of the Australian Army. Upon seeing a plaster cast of the dead man she identified him as Boxall. This appeared to solve the mystery of who the man was, until Boxall was discovered alive with his copy of the book undamaged. Coincidentally the woman who identified the man lived in Glenelg – the last town visited by the dead man before he travelled by bus to his final destination.
Below is the Tomb Stone of that man,
